by Daniel Kemp
His choice, from the thirty or so that had arrived that day at Cork railway station, had not been solely based on their physical appearance, although that was a consideration. He judged that his savage, crude words would crush the inquisitiveness of puberty into a pliable, manipulative condition from which he would benefit more than the selfish pleasure he could find later. The trouble with war, he so often said, was the act of dying probably came too fast for the protracted terror of death to eat the soul away from its victim. He used that metaphor as a way of extolling the value of instant death as opposed to a lingering painful end, when in public but not in private moments; when he practised the opposite. One such instance was about to be realised.
“There is another choice you lot can pick. One where I save you from every evil bastard who wants to get inside your knickers and up inside your arse. Believe me, there are fucking hundreds lining up for just that. That choice is where you work for me doing the exact things I tell you to do, without question or even thinking about it. They are your only choices. With me you get food and a roof over your heads after you've done what I tell you to. Without me you get the roof, but you're the food that others eat while they tell you how they're going to rip you open. What's it to be?”
To a child they stood silent. Some had stopped shivering. Not from any sense of warmth found hidden in the raw filth of Charlie's speech, it was the realisation of the absolute horror that numbed all psychological feeling into a paralysing state of feebleness. Some had puddles of urine at their feet. Charlie noted them in particular.
“You, the four who've pissed themselves, line up in front of me! No, don't look at yourselves. Form a line, one behind the other….In front of me.” He had no need to shout. It was simple confusion that delayed their obedience but shout he did, inflicting more debasement on already young desperate minds.
“The other three line up behind them.” He waited. “Now grab the left hand of the person in front,” he waited again.
“Clever kids. You know your left from your right. That's a start at least. Now, let's see if you can follow orders and save your fucking worthless lives. Follow me and no tripping over or falling down, or I'll stamp on you.”
On the bed, in a small windowless room concealed behind empty boxes stamped with the name of a Welsh removal company, in the basement of 17 Cherry Grove, Cork, lay the trussed up body of Imelda Williams. She had already been beaten, several times. Her torn, shredded summer frock and red lacy blouse provided abundant evidence of bruised grazes that glared from the creased and shabby white sheet on which she was bundled as the bare electric light shone down on her. As the party quietly arrived, she uncomfortably wriggled her way into a sitting position. Beside where she was, on a large wooden battered crate, was a collection of old, used hammers and a number of knives of different sizes. One had a curved slicing blade, reminding one boy in the group of an Arab scimitar he'd seen whilst reading of Sinbad the Sailor, in a comic book. Imelda seemed pleased to see the children. That look of presumed safety soon passed.
“Right, do what I bloody tell you, or I'll fuck you then kill you where you stand!” Charlie addressed the seven terrified, quaking children.
“Pick up a hammer and knife each. Then hit that bitch with them. Stab her everywhere until there's no blood left inside her body. If you do it right then it's only her head I'll cut off.” He had the scimitar in his right hand, the tip resting in his left. “If you do it wrong them I'll cut all your useless heads off, after slowly chopping bits off and feeding them to the rats.”
The carnage lasted several minutes, as at first no child obeyed the wicked severity that Charlie had demanded. Tiny blows with small pricks from the sharp knives were tentatively delivered that Imelda found disturbing but not life-threatening. They could stop, she silently prayed. Charlie demanded more in his raised threatening voice, as no voice was there to answer Imelda's pleas. The blows increased in strength but despite this, Charlie ordered more.
The patience of tyrants is not a known quality that any have been praised for possessing. Kindness and understanding of their fellows is not something I've heard attributed to their character. Charlie was repaying the kindness that Percy had extended to him at Grange Manor, but not one ounce of consideration flowed towards the children nor Imelda, neither would he recognised the words leniency and forgiveness as they were never part of his nature. The tense frustration of being unable to fulfil his love of Percy became apparent only in vengeance. He grabbed the nearest boy by the arm, roughly pulling him over the bare cement-coloured floor towards himself. That boy was named Thomas Fuller from Enfield, London, simply known as Tom. With one swinging blow from the scimitar he scythed off Tom's head!
“Slaughter that bitch or I'll chop you all into little pieces. Do it now, or all of you lose your stinking little heads!”
Covered in blood, with more pumping from the severed arteries of the sprawling Tom, Charlie waved his blood-dripping weapon above their skulls just as Imelda felt the first deep cut into her side. Her screams echoed within the six remaining children's ears until their own death relieved the unbalanced conscience lived by all on that life-destroying day. Only Tom experiencing the painless death that Charlie both advocated and maligned, depending on the company around at the time. His torso and head were never found when police discovered Imelda Williams, as reported in the Echo, but in those days they had no reason to look for it, nor did they have the ground-penetrating radar or the ability to analyse the air chemicals emitted from buried corpses.
Charlie's resumed supply of information for the insatiable appetite of the Nazi war machine, now aided by an additional six pairs of eyes and ears, became a weekly feast for the Abwehr, so much so that Douglas Simmons was sanctioned to meet Charlie and told to shake his hand. It took almost thirteen years from that date until the resumption of communications between Percy and Charlie was made possible. During which time Charlie's festering love grew more palpable by the day as did the unmarked graves in the cemetery that backed onto the Cork mansion of Oliver Somerset, Elizabeth his wife, and their two children, Rufus and Olivia. He had a lot to share with Percy in their combined search for revenge and gratification.
Chapter Twenty-One: Pay-As-You-Go
Around eleven on the Saturday morning, a week after the game shoot, George rang my private line.
“Sophie's done the impossible, Harry! She's found the location of one of the remaining photos and what's more, the fate of,” I abruptly cut him short of finishing.
“Not on this line, George. I can't be sure it's not compromised after that intrusion I told you of. If it's not raining where you are, the heavens opened up here about an hour ago, got caught in it while out riding with Serena. I haven't long been out of a hot bath. Anyway, call me from that phone box in Hobart Place in a few hours' time, say five pm, that should give me enough time to buy another mobile in Harrogate. What we'll do is use Sophie's phone as our contact number. I'll message her the number of the pay-as-you-go one when I get it. I take it she has a mobile, George?”
“She has, Harry! The number is, no, wait, can't say that either, can I?”
“No, you can't. Stupid me! Tell you what, give me until two-thirty, that's plenty of time for me to drive to the Spy Glass. Call me there from that same phone box, then I can give you the number.”
“I don't know the number of that pub, Harry, but I could look it up.”
I could hear that same loss of confidence in George's voice that occurred whenever things never ran smoothly.
“No matter, old bean, I'll text you the number of the pub when I get there, from my old phone. Nobody will be able to set up a trace on that line in the time it'll take you to walk from Eton Square. It should only take what, five minutes at the most?”
I decided not to drive myself, as a trip into Harrogate and then to the pub would be a welcome relief from my thoughts. I might even sit on the worriers' bench when I got there. John was waiting in the Range Rover, outside the side door, ten mi
nutes later.
“Hello there, Harry, good to see you! What's your take on our chances in this year's Six Nations? Personally I can't see any of the rest having a prayer.” It was Jim, the landlord, with whom I always nattered on about sport in one form or other. “I hope you want your usual, Harry, as I've poured it already. Knew you were coming, you see, had a phone call from a chap named George. Asked for you to call him back on this number. He said he hoped you bought yourself the present you intended to buy today. Hope you know what he meant, as it all sounded a bit croak and swagger to me.” I was never sure if Jim was a true London cockney or just made-up the rhyming slang on the spot. It didn't matter, as it was entertaining whichever way. He handed me a torn off slip of paper with a London number written on it.
I dialled the number and was told by a woman's voice that I'd reached the Goring Hotel. I knew it well, but I didn't realise George did. I asked to speak to a George Northcliffe and in no time at all he was on the other end with a cheerful — “Hello, Harry.”
The first thing I did was to congratulate him on his initiative in finding the number for the Spy Glass. At least this new phone was secure. I asked George to speak with Sophie face-to-face asking her to print off all that she'd found and keep it until the courier I sent arrived. I was anxious to know exactly what it was she had discovered, but someone else was involved now, and I wasn't sure how far my security had been breached. The next phone call would shine light on that but no matter its outcome I evidently needed to take precautions.
“Good afternoon, Sir David! I was wondering if that secretary of yours I bumped into when I came to see you a couple of years back sleepwalks, and found her way into my office the other night but forgot to leave her calling card?”
“I'll have to ask her, Harry. I have an appointment in a few minutes that will take most of the afternoon, I'll call you tonight from home. Okay by you?”
I gave Sir David the number of the new mobile knowing that his line was as safe as anything could be. I was now grateful that I had three of the things in my pockets. It fleetingly crossed my mind that Serena might think I had two other lovers if she discovered that fact.
* * *
“Sorry for the delay, Harry, meeting went on longer than I'd anticipated. Yes, made some discreet inquires and it was us in your office.” I could hear voices in the background.
“Where you calling from, David,” I asked, suspicious of those voices.
“In the Millers Arms, in Chelsea, on my way home. I'm sure my driver thinks I'm meeting a woman here by the way he looked at me when I said I needed to make a detour. I half expected him to wink.”
“What were they looking for, David?” I wasn't interested in what his driver thought.
“Information on what you're up to, but I didn't delve too far in that direction. I have a place that I can use that's secure for any meeting we might have in the future, Harry, but it will take a couple of days to arrange owing to commitments at my end. I'll send a key to Harrogate. In the meantime, do absolutely nothing in your various inquiries, and do not use any computer in your home, or any at Eton Square. I imagine you're getting very close to looking through the right keyholes, and that's making you a very dangerous person to know. I'd keep a careful watch on your followers if I was you. However, if anyone can get through the mess that Percy created, you can, but not without informed help. That's going to have come from me. I did find out that it's not only us all over your phone lines, the American have them covered as well. They have a permanent satellite signal reading all phone and computer lines registered to The Hall, relaying that back to Langley. We, on the other hand, have to rely on old fashion tradecraft for our intrusive mechanisms. Bloody expensive, what they use. They must want Percy at any cost. It was said to me that it only took six women's names before your computer was cracked, Harry. Either you've only known ladies with common names or you're definitely slowing down a bit in your ageing career. Whatever you and Paulo are on to is scaring the shit out of the Americans and I would like to know why.”
“I'm sure it's not as straightforward as that, David. Although Paulo worked in circles, his motives were fairly clear. I can't understand what he's trying to say and why now he's saying it?”
As soon as I closed the phone it rang again. It was George.
“Harry, are we in danger?”
“Why are you asking, George?”
“I was on my way to Sophie's when Mrs Squires called. Apparently we have two special branch officers at number I6. We're to have twenty-four-hour coverage from now on! I thought it best to call you. Hope I did the right thing.”
“You did, George! You're doing brilliantly.”
* * *
Sophie's findings arrived at The Hall just after six o'clock that evening. I was desperate to open the package.
“Harry P, you have left me all day on my own. You're not going to disappear now to open a parcel, I simply will not allow it! Open it here or I'll stamp my feet and bring the walls crashing down on you, I swear I will. And then I'll cry like a baby.”
The photograph was of the Cork Municipal cemetery, that backed onto the house owned by the Somerset family. It showed a heavily overgrown concealed entrance at the end of a long winding path, through an ornate floral garden directly accessed from the rear of the house. Who was buried there that required Maudlin to photograph the place worried me, and Serena shared the same thought.
“Strange place for a great great-grandfather to take a snap of, Harry. Any ideas in Sophie's letter as to why?” she asked.
“Not really, no! She says that the whole family of four who lived in the house were booked on a boat called Berengaria sailing to America from Liverpool on the fourth April 1930. Other than that there's nothing.”
“Any sightings when they got to America?”
“Nothing that she says here, Seri.”
“Ring George and ask him. Seems a bit weird that she sent that all the way by courier. Why didn't she ring?”
“No idea, my sweet! But I'll ring George later to find out. Mrs Franks tells me that she's serving your stew again tonight. You've actually made her smile, Seri, on more occasions than just the shoot! Not something that strangers can normally do. Hope the Sullivans and Caddicks will be as impressed as everyone was last week.”
“I hope I don't remain a stranger to your cook for too long, Harry. One day perhaps she'll look on me as a member of the family, as you might as well. But have no doubt on tonight's party. With the dress I intend to wear, the women will be envious and the men so engrossed in lustful thirst they won't know where else to look. Mrs Franks could serve poached eggs on toast and none of them would notice!” Her vivacity was a reflection of the glass of champagne she held, full of fizz and sparkle.
“I'm doing okay here then, Harry, am I?” giggling like a school girl, she asked.
“Everything you do is absolutely perfect, Seri,” I replied.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Three Seats But Many Voices
Three days after receiving David's instructions I was opening the front door of the Burton Water address, and following his orders to the letter. It was eight at night with sufficient natural light to see precisely where I had to go. After exiting the building from the river end, I followed the bricked path to where gentle waves were lapping quietly against a small rowing boat moored by a single rope. I reached the single-masted sloop, towing a twin-engined dingy, about fifteen minutes later. There, on its aft deck was Sir David Haig with Sir Rupert Draycott standing alongside. Sir Rupert was the first to speak, after securing my rowing boat to the starboard side.
“I use the place up here when I want to play at being a sailor, Harry. Sometimes that mood lasts for weeks now that I'm retired. David comes up occasionally to share in my fantasy. I had three brothers, you see, now all sadly dead, but we split in half when choosing which of the services to join when family tradition so dictated. Always envied the navy's freedom away at sea, hundreds of miles from direct contact with those in charg
e. Not like us in the army, where they lived on our backs like over-weighted saddles. The radios on board the navy boats would often malfunction according to both my brothers, allowing them some freedom of modus operandi unlike us squaddies, eh. Bit of the green grass being always better somewhere else syndrome. Mind you, that was before computers, doubt it's the same today. But then again, what is, Harry?”
“I could never see you in a private's uniform, somehow, Rupert. Always had gold on your shoulder, I bet.” I playfully retorted, understanding too well his meaning.
Three separate, padded green seats lined the cabin wall, with another at right-angles to it. A polished wooden table was directly in front and a cooking area on the opposite side. It was small but diligently cared for. By the time I followed Rupert down below Sir David Haig was already seated.
“I thought you might feel more at ease with Rupert here, Harry, as like you I'd trust him with my life, and the lives of my entire family.” Rupert took the seat furthest from the companionway. I took the one on its own. I've always hated having my back to a door, this night was no different in that respect.
“I'm going to give you all that we have on Percy Crow and Charlie Reilly that's on file. It's not extensive but Rupert believes, and I agree, that it may make matters clearer in your investigation. Let me get one thing out of the way before I begin. You must be asking yourself why I'm doing this, and why it's without the knowledge of any department. I don't trust everyone in the intelligent service that I head, Harry. Especially where all this could go and end up. For some reason, yet to be discovered, the CIA is stringing you. If it's a certain Howard James Fredrick Mercer the second, then he's no ordinary exec. There's a branch within their Directorate of Operations that's called The ARM. It's an old army slogan taken from their 101st Parachute Regiment, the Screaming Eagles, stands for Assault, Reclaim, Mobilise. That's who those across the Thames at the Box believe are debriefing Katherine. How am I doing so far, Harry?”